Unspoken
by dr-keogh
Summary: Dylan and David have adopted six-year-old Lofty, who is deaf.


**Just to provide some context for this, Dylan and David (both still working at Holby Hospital) have adopted six-year-old Lofty, who is deaf. David is fluent in sign language, but Dylan far from.**

 **"Hello." = speech**

 **'Hello.' = sign**

 **Oh, and I've used spoken English word order for the dialogue instead of BSL word order, because it's easier to read and frankly easier for me to write.**

Dylan stands in the corridor, watching.

David and their son, Lofty, are holding a rapid fire conversation, hands moving quicker than Dylan thought he'd ever be able to understand. David's expression changes rapidly to go along with the conversation, and Dylan is too in awe to try to pick out any words he might get, too engrossed in the way Lofty's little fingers twiddle quickly through complicated signs.

After a while, Lofty drops his hands with a big grin, and David grins back. Dylan feels his heart warm before remembering the bags of shopping in his hands. He pushes the door to the living room further open, dropping the bags at his feet to sign a quick 'hello, Ben' in Lofty's direction, followed by a spoken and signed hello to David.

"Could you give me a hand?" Dylan requests, and David nods before translating to Lofty. This is their set up. Dylan will speak, and David will translate. It's not ideal, but Dylan is learning slowly, and in the meantime David is more than happy to be the middle ground.

"Look, here," David says as he stands up. He places a thumbs up on his left palm away from his body, before pulling the two hands towards his chest. "This is 'can you help me?'. Dominant hand, towards the body. The opposite direction is 'can I help you?'."

Dylan repeats the sign as he always does when he learns a new one. He feels a tug on his sleeve and looks down to see Lofty looking at him sternly, signing 'please'.

'Sorry,' Dylan signs, rolling his eyes, 'can you help me, please?'

Lofty smiles and picks up one of the lighter bags, walking it through to the kitchen. Dylan follows, as well as David.

"Good day?" Dylan asks as he packs away some tins.

"Oh yes," David nods. "We were just discussing the best dinosaurs. And we learnt the sign for stegosaurus."

Dylan raises an eyebrow, looking over to where Lofty is sat at the table, swinging his legs.

"How's he been?" Dylan asks, lowering his voice even though he knows there's no need.

David's expression saddens slightly. He turns his back to Lofty to make sure he's not reading lips.

"He's been okay. He was a little withdrawn this morning. Didn't want to be touched or held and just didn't seem particularly happy. But he was doing better by the afternoon."

Dylan nods, busying himself with putting away the now empty plastic bags. Only then does he notice Lofty waving at him, beckoning him towards the table, pointing at the picture he's drawn.

He points a small finger to the first tall figure with blue scrubs before bringing his right hand to his left shoulder and drawing a cross there followed by the sign for 'father', which Dylan knows is David's sign. Lofty then points to the second tall figure with fiery red hair and something resembling a stethoscope around his neck. He taps his wrist twice with two fingers before signing 'father' again, and Dylan recognizes his own sign straight away. Finally, Lofty points to the smallest character with shocking black curls and a baby blue teddy in his hand before jabbing a finger to his chest.

'Wow!' Dylan signs, nodding. 'Very cool.'

He wishes he knew how to hold a longer conversation. He'd like to pick out a detail and talk about it with his adoptive son, but his limited vocabulary stops him.

Lofty seems to understand, though. He points to the blue crayon, and the blue of David's scrubs in the drawing.

'Blue,' he signs, deliberately slowly so Dylan can copy, 'my favourite colour.'

"His favourite colour is blue," David says from where he's watching by the cupboard, though Dylan had already sort of guessed that's what Lofty had been saying. He tries to mimic the signs, swapping blue for green, and grin breaks across Lofty's face, pride shining in his eyes. Dylan relishes the rare moments where they understand each other, when it finally feels like he's breaking through to his son after so long.

'Love you, Daddy,' Lofty signs, clambering off the chair and towards the door. He doesn't wait for Dylan's response before wandering out of the room, probably to where the television is still playing Cbeebies with subtitles.

"What's for dinner then, Big Cook?" David asks, and Dylan rolls his eyes at the reference to the kids' show they've seen so much of since Lofty moved in.

"I was thinking we could go out for a meal, as a family. We've never taken him anywhere nice," Dylan suggests.

"I think it's a lovely idea," David agrees. He checks the clock and finds it's only nearing four o'clock. "Though we'll need to be back early. I don't think Ben slept very well last night."

"Oh really?" Dylan asks, feeling inferior once again at not having noticed something that David seems to have picked up easily.

David nods, tight lipped. "He woke up late, which is rare." Dylan nods at this. Lofty is always up at the ridiculously early time Dylan has to wake up at to get to work. "And he's been yawning all day. I don't know if it was something or nothing, but I don't want to interrupt his routine if we can help it."

"We'll be back by seven, then," Dylan agrees.

 **For those interested, Dylan's name sign is 'Doctor, Father' and David's name sign is 'Nurse, Father'. Which is what the little descriptions of Lofty's actions meant when he was showing Dylan the drawing.**


End file.
